I Could Never Get Past This Part

You stand inside the cavernous Temple of Ashcamatazz. Light from nearby torches barely pierces the gloomy darkness. At the north end you see the Chalice of Secrets in its place atop the high priest’s altar. There is an exit to the south.
There is a level 12 Mage here, between you and the altar.

> talk to mage
The Mage does not return your greeting.

> kill mage
What do you want to kill the Mage with?

> banana
You cannot kill the Mage with the banana.

> kill mage with sword

As you draw your weapon, the Mage calmly raises his robed hand and summons the +5 Chinchilla of Fluffiness. As you stare into its beady eyes, you can feel the life drain from your body.

Oh man! I loved those text-based games from the 80s! And those text-graphics games from the 90s (Space Quest, Police Quest, King’s Quest).

The great thing about playing them now is that with the Internet at your fingertips, you can always find the cheats/secrets/solutions. To defeat the Level 12 Mage, type “squee”, then “nosicle”, then “floof”. Bingo – you can now advance!

An enhancement shaman can beat a mage, no problem. Shear is sheep, elemental resistance to lessen damage, pop ghost wolves, hope for a big WF Crit, and if the fight goes long enough, a 5 stack Lava Lash.

Yes, yes, and F*** THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE GAME. Loved the books, but the game was nothing but stupid and cruel to its audience. A ragged scar upon the otherwise happy tapestry of memory that is Douglas Adams. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to throw myself at the ground, and miss.

The room begins reverberating with your perfectly-pitched exclamation of unbridled glee and excitement. The Mage begins hopping up and down, echoing your cry and pressing his hands to his bosum (um…?) which, in turn, dislodges the Chinchilla, who scampers away. Dismayed, the Mage scurries off in pursuit of his beloved familiar.

Dearest NTMTOM,
I just watned to proclaim my deepest appreciation for this entire post… The memories of those crazy test games of yesteryear.

and the reminder of our dear Templeton who though not a chin(she was a white and black hodded rattie) spent a huge portion of her life happily ensconed in my daughters sleeve… peeking out at the world in happy rattie bliss. She is missed to this day.

In all the Infinity engine games (Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, etc) the secret to killing mages is using ranged attacks to interrupt casting and buy time for you to close to melee range with a fighter. If the enemy had enough time to raise defenses against melee, he also has a billion layers of spell protection.

In which case I cast pierce, breach, spell penetration, dispel, warding whip, and ruby reversal totally at random because who the hell can remember what dispels what?

Wow! I b’lieve that was even before the Commodore 64, my family’s Zork-engine-of-choice! It was so cool when my husband brought home a REAL computer from work, and you no longer had a long pause when you solved something, as the 5 1/4-in. floppy digested the information! What wonderful times! Our poor pre-school daughter (who was already reading, over our shoulders) was terrified of grues for years!

Wow! I so remember playing a game like this a long time ago, back in the days of floppy discs and computers that had green writing. Windows hadn’t been invented yet. At least not the software kind. (Structures did have the kind of windows that are an actual square hole cut into a wall and fitted with glass). I think it was called Zork but I’m not sure. But it was quite fun and I even had a map at some point to try to get to different areas. 🙂

I’ve got you beat — in the late 70’s, you could play ADVENTURE which I believe was the first text-based computer game. Played it for hours (sometimes on black screen with orange text monitors — remember those?) while I should have been doing homework for Computer Science classes — keyboards and monitors were a step up from Ye Olde Teletype ande Punch Cards. XYZZY forever!

OMG, NTMTOM! I used to play those text-only computer games! They were so funny, so imaginative, so well done! I remember one involving a pirate treasure on an island . . . .
********I am ded from teh nostaligas********

Nerdlingers aside, I was still so excited to see a chinchilla post! They are so neat and weird (hands and feeties mostly) and neat. I love my little LunaBella – she rocks socks. But of course, so do nerds. 🙂

after reading all these great descriptions, i realized that i did play this game. i didn’t remember the name “zork,” though. i gave up after the candle bit, so i remember D&D and myst better. i love that so many of you are such internet vets!

LOL My daughter named her, she was in second grade.. we had been reading “Charottes Web” as a bed time story about that time.. She was the best Rattie ever, ( the rat… not my daughter).. though when daughter was a teenager she did act ratty! fortunately we all grow up. 🙂

I’m sorry, but I believe you took the wrong approach to this game. You need to invest all your points in leveling up your adorableness resistance, as that is the main element used in Cute Overload: The Game. Next time, you have to do that so you can talk to the mage about its chinchilla. Then he’ll lead you to the cave level. Try to keep the light low in this segment though, as bright light startles the animals there. The bats are much higher fluffiness level, and seeing them will kill you unless you close your eyes immediately. Not to mention the owls in the next forest stage…

I think I’ve got a bug in my game because I’m still walking around with a Cute Overload Calendar in my knapsack. I thought I’d already wielded that against the kinky koala but the calendar’s still there. Do you think it will still work against the chinchilla, bats and owls, or do you suggest I restart? 🙂

> i
You have a lantern, a banana, a screwdriver, a bag of coins, and a Nerd badge.
> show badge to Mage
The Mage bows his head and places chinchilla in your hands. He apologizes profusely and takes the banana from you. He disappears in a puff of smoke.
—
*puts away Nerd badge*
Actually, Zork was just the first. They had Zork 2, and Zork 3, and Zork Zero, and Beyond Zork….
*notices people starting to sneak away*
And Return to Zork, and Zork Nemesis, and Zork Grand Inquisitor…
*looks around nervously*
Hey…where are you going? Wait! I got the chinchilla!

Holy cow… I never in a gazillion years thought I’d run into anyone else in the whole world that had played the “Hitchhikers” game…. let alone also got their house bulldozed or had trouble with that $*%& babel fish.

So, um… did anyone else out there have a TRS-80? Where the programs came on tapes that went into a tape recorder hooked up to the computer…? No?

Well, then I guess you never played the text-based “Eliza”, the psychotherapist…? She’d say things like “And how does that make you feel?”, and “Tell me about your childhood.” and reprimand you for swearing. Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure my early exposure to that “game” could explain a LOT.

I, too, knew Eliza. There is a quasi-AI exhibit at the Walker Art Center (in Minneapolis) called the Oracle which is an animated CGI dolphin, with attached Mac keyboard. You type in questions, the dolphin answers. I once asked aforementioned dolphin if s/he knew Eliza, and of COURSE the virtual oracular ocean mammal came back with “Eliza is awesome.”

I’m guessing mine was a relatively common question among seekers of a certain age. 😉